Editor of Hatzofe
He forcefully voices religious Jewry’s views on current affairs and problems of the State, and in a brilliant manner, he sets forth their attitudes and demands.
He writes with much knowledge and deep understanding: knowledge of the people’s past, tradition and culture, and understanding of its needs and destiny. He writes with dignity, with warmth and with vigor.
Shabbatai Don-Yehiya, editor of Hatzofe, Israel’s larges religious daily, is one of the country’s foremost publicists
Since the establishment of the State, leading personalities of Israel’s religious parties have been frequent visitors to this country, Don-Yehiya was not among them. He could not leave the editor’s chair for a lengthy journey. At long last, he too, has come here. He arrived last week with the SS Shalom.
We visited him at the friendly home of his brother-in-law Emil Wolfe in Manhattan. The fifty-five year old editor is a well-built man of medium height, grayish hair adorning his high forehead and strong facial features. He overflows with friendliness and cordiality. Don-Yehiya’s modesty is proverbial in Israel, and his contact with the air of the country of ballyhoo does not seem to have affected him. Open shirt, open heart and open arms—this is the man we met.
During our long talk, the phone did not cease ringing. Don-Yehiya has many friends and admirers and the news of his arrival electrified them all.
He is a scion of the illustrious Ibn Yahya family of Spain and Portugal. After the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula, members of the family became prominently active in the Sefardic communities of the Mediterranean countries. More than two hundred years ago a branch of the Ibn Yahayas settled among the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe. Its descendants were subsequently spiritual leaders of Russian Jewish communities. Shabbatai Don-Yehiya’s father, Ben Zion, author of Likkutei Megadim, a compilation of Poskim of Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim, as well as his grandfather Eliezer, were rabbis of Lucin in Latvia.
Shabbatai left his native country for Palestine is 1932. For a lengthy period he studies at the Yeshiva of Rav Kook in Jerusalem and at the Hebrew University. Rav Kook has been the paramount influence in his life and his books and personality have guided him throughout his career as a writer.
“I have met many outstanding men in my life. Some were greater than others. Yet all belonged to the same category, they were all ‘normal human beings’, Don-Yehiya told us. “Rav Kook was different. Here was man, who at times could detach himself completely from his terrestrial surroundings and communicate with higher spheres.”
“If you should as me: ‘What is Ruach Hakodesh? I would not be able to answer you. But in the presence of Rav Kook, I felt what Ruach Hakodesh must be like. I felt it particularly during the moments I saw him pacing his room in ecstasy, his soul agitated and aglow. Rav Kook was a visionary…he was a prophet.”
“He wrote many books, great books, but these convey only a very faint idea of his towering personality.”
After leaving yeshiva, Don-Yehiya worked as a laborer in Kfar Chasidim. In 1936 he was appointed general secretary of Hapoel Hamizrachi and in this capacity edited Netiva the party’s organ. Towards the end of 1937, with the establishment of Hatzofe, he joined its staff. Eleven years later he became editor of the daily.
In addition to the editorials, Don-Yehiya, who is better know by his pen name Shin Daniel, contributes to his paper equally brilliant articles on a variety of subjects: pointed criticism and subtle observations on Israeli life, as well as interviews and book reviews. His “hobby” is the writing of biographies of outstanding rabbis and leaders of religious Zionism. Among others, he has written biographies on Rabbis Kook, Yaakov, Moshe Charlap, and his grandfather Eliezer Don-Yehiya.
“My grandfather, author of Even Shethiya, was a great Posek. He was equally well known for his astounding physical strength.”
“Rav Kook was a disciple of his,” continued Don-Yehiya. “On Purim, the Rav would speak to us, his pupils, of Jewish strength and valor. He would invariably mention grandfather and his feats. Rav Kook would sing in Russian “Al Tira Avdi Yaakov” and then tell how grandfather defended his community against the Cossacks.”
“Ven di kosaken zenen gekumen, hot Reb Eliezer Lutshiner genumen zein steken…” Don-Yehiya imitated the niggun of Rav Kook.
“Before the First World War, grandfather spent some time in London. Once, while on a visit to the zoo, he felt like starting up with a lion. If not for the intervention of those who were with him, he would have done so. When he died in 1926, the Latvian papers wrote at great length about his extraordinary physical strength.”
In recent year Don-Yehiya has authored much-praised monographs on the late Chief Rabbi Uziel, on Chaim Shmuel Landau, great ideologist of Hapoel Hamizrachi, and on the rabbi-Chalutz Yeshaya Shapira. At present he is working on a biography of the late Rabbi Meshullam Rath.
Though he has been editor of Hatzofe for sixteen years, Don-Yehiya has not permitted himself to limit his activities to writing editorials and other articles and to the general supervision of the paper. He still puts in long hours of work, scanning carefully all material sent to press.
“My husband has never known how to make things easy for himself,” Lily, the editor’s charming wife, told us. Though she may grumble sometimes about his late and long working hours, Lily is proud that their daughter Ruth has taken after her husband.
Ruth, too, has never known how to make things easy for herself. As a religious girl, she could have asked for exemption from military service, but she chose to enlist. She underwent training as an officer and graduated with distinction. On the occasion of her graduation the well known New York scholar Dr. Isaac Rivkind sent Ruth a beautifully designed family tree of the Ibn Yahyas—to serve as a steady reminder of her great Yichus. While in the army she managed to complete her studies at a teachers’ seminary. She continues her education in London.
“Does she write too?” we asked.
“Oh, she sends us beautiful articles from London,” the editor’s wife answered. “And this is an impartial view,” she added.
The Don-Yehiyas have also a son. Ben Zion is a talented and diligent high school student, active in Bnei Akiva, and, to quote his mother, resembles his father in many ways.
Upon Shabbetai Don-Yehiya’s arrival, he was met by a delegation of the Mizrachi. They had “fixed” his “schedule” in advance without having consulted him. “Monday you will speak her, Tuesday you will give a talk there, Wednesday you will address…”
“How would I be able to do all this?” uttered the bewildered editor, who had thought of his journey as a study trip and not as a lecture tour.
“Now, we cannot do anything about it. It’s already in the papers,” said the people of the Mizrachi.
Good-natured and modest Don-Yehiya could not help but gracefully accept the verdict.
By Tovia Preschel Jewish Press May 9, 1964